team, not the unwilling captive she’d been just the night before. He didn’t want to think of her as one of his crew. Didn’t want to think of her in any of the ways he was now. He tore his gaze away from her and put it back on his wounded colleague. “Keep your eyes open, Candice. Tell me the rest now.”
“Everything happened so fast,” she said, her voice a thready whisper. “Vince had a dark look on his face . . . Next thing I knew, there was a knife in his hand. He lunged at Chaz . . . stabbed him hard in the chest. Then he grabbed Ackmeyer . . . had the knife under his chin . . . said he was going to start doing things his way.”
Kellan’s growl rumbled in the quiet cell. His vision burned a deeper shade of amber, fury roiling through him with each word he was hearing.
“I tried to stop him, Bowman.” Candice’s eyes lifted to him now and stayed there, glassy and lethargic, but fixed on him as though searching for forgiveness. Kellan swore, low and coarse under his breath. “Even after he stabbed me, I tried to stop him from taking Ackmeyer, from getting away,” she said weakly. “I tried . . .”
“It’s all right.” Kellan cupped the side of her skull in his palm. “You did everything you could, I know that. I’m the one who should’ve been there to deal with Vince.” His glance strayed to Chaz’s body and the three grave faces that were all staring at him in the blood-soaked cell of the rebel bunker. “Bastard’s a dead man. He’s going to know that now.”
Kellan rose to his feet and stalked out of the room without further explanation.
He wasn’t surprised to hear Mira right behind him as soon as he took his first step in the corridor outside, but he was far from pleased. “What are you doing?” she demanded at his back, running to keep up with his furious gait. “Kellan, where are you going?”
The sound of his name on her lips—his true name—put a dangerous edge in his answering growl as he wheeled around to face her. He grabbed her upper arms and steered her back against the nearest wall. “One of my men is dead back there. Another of my crew could bleed out in a few minutes, if Doc doesn’t work some kind of magic on her leg. And a captive under my watch has been taken by one of my own—right under my fucking nose—likely to be sold to the highest bidder or killed before sundown tonight. You think I’m going to sit back and let this go unmet?”
“It’s the middle of the day. You can’t go anywhere—”
“Let me deal with that,” he snapped, knowingly harsh as he let her loose and pivoted to leave her behind him in the hallway.
But Mira had never been one to give in that easily. No, not her. She marched right after him, bare feet padding in determined strides at his back. It took her only moments before she was in front of him, blocking his path with her body. A body that looked entirely too damn good in his T-shirt and overlong sweatpants, rolled up at her ankles.
“Don’t be an idiot,” she said, eyes flashing behind the purple tint of her contact lenses. “You’ll die out there right now.”
“I’ve got a good half hour before I need to worry about exposure,” he pointed out. “I can be in the city in less than ten minutes on foot.”
“Then what?” she countered hotly. “Twenty minutes to turn Boston upside down looking for Vince and Ackmeyer before you’re toast? It’s suicidal and you know it.”
He scoffed, even though she was right. “You got a better idea?”
“Yeah. I’ll go after them. If I don’t find Vince myself, I’ll work my way through every rebel piece of shit in the city until someone rats him out.”
Kellan barked out a caustic laugh. “Forget it. This is my mess to clean up, not yours. You’re not a part of it, Mira. And I’ll walk into the sun itself before I put you in the middle of this shit.”
If he’d had any kind of honor, he would have done that eight years ago, ensuring that he’d never have the chance to hurt her the way her vision showed him he would. But he hadn’t been able to cut himself off from Mira, not totally. He’d stayed close, closer than was